


In A State Of Total Confusion

by merrysophiatrash



Series: Field Trip Fics [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Flash is shocked, Gen, How original, Iron Dad, Pepper Potts Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Peter Parker's Field Trip to Stark Industries, Peter is important at SI, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, spider son
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2019-10-28 18:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17792879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrysophiatrash/pseuds/merrysophiatrash
Summary: Peter Parker had a bad day, okay? Sue him. But do not blame him for everything that happened after.Or, another field trip fic because I can't help myself.Or, Peter's really important at Stark Industries and everyone is shook





	1. Peter May or May Not Actually Be the Head of R&D at SI

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I'm not dead. Surprisingly. I'm also not working on any of my other WIPs. Nope. I'm starting something else like a fuckin maniac because I'm a Hyperactive monster who bounces from idea to idea. (I promise, one day, I'll finish the rest of them.)

Peter Parker had a bad day, okay? Sue him. 

For context, his bad day started _before he even woke up_. Peter had left a solution for webs out in his lab last night, and for whatever reason, even though the formula had no reason to oxidate and react that way, the prolonged exposure to oxygen made it explode into every corner of his lab. Every. Single. One.

So his day started with his dad _bursting_ into his room, yelling about how he had to clean it up before school. He did, and barely had time to hug his dad before running out the door, skipping breakfast, swinging to school, and still being a minute late to first period AP Spanish 5. (The only small mercy was that Profe Saenz loved him and didn’t give him a tardy.)

In second period, Flash threw a spitball at him that wouldn’t get out of his hair, and he didn’t even notice it until lunch when MJ pointed it out. Ned had to cut it out.

He forgot his lunch, and the only thing being served was some suspicious-looking tacos, so he didn’t eat.

In sixth period some crime was happening in front of the school but Ms. O’Leary wouldn’t let him out of the classroom, and that was before his day got bad.

In last period Chemistry, he nearly got himself, Ned, MJ, and Flash a detention because Flash was being a dick. Mr. Harrington took some small mercy on them.

He got a text from Tony telling him that he would have to miss school the next Friday for Presentation Day, which Mr. Harrington made him read out to the entire class. That sucked, because he was hoping it would be on a weekend so he wouldn’t have to miss school. He didn’t really mind, though, because he would gladly skip school to present to the most renowned scientists in the world. He’s only been working on his project since the last Presentation Day happened. So he had to explain what Stark Industries Presentation Day was to the whole class, and got the resounding sigh of the kids who thought he was lying.

In the Academic Decathlon meeting, Mr. Harrington was acting all fidgety.

“So, kids, seeing as we won Nationals this year for the 2nd year in a row, the district and the school got us a grant to go on a field trip.” The kids in the room hushed, intrigued.

“I’m very pleased to announce that that grant got us a field trip to the Stark Industries Headquarters in Manhattan, which was the first and also most important one! Field trip is next Friday, and I expect all of you to be on your absolute best behavior.” He fidgeted with his hands again. “Alright, well you still need to practice, so- Take it away, Michelle!”

As MJ read off practice papers, Peter realized that he didn’t have to go, and raised his hand. Mr. Harrington nodded at him. “Mr. Harrington, I’ve got to go to work on Friday, so I can’t go to the field trip.” Mr. Harrington barely acknowledged it, distracted, but Flash snickered.

“Yeah, right. More like, ‘I’m Penis Parker and I lie about having a Stark Internship so when people might find out, I chicken out.’”

Mr. Harrington grumbled out a “language” to Flash, but was otherwise unconcerned.

Practice wrapped up and Mr. Harrington gave the rest of the team permission slips, and then Peter’s day somehow got _worse_. 

The activator for his nanotech in the Iron Spider suit wouldn’t activate, and Peter didn’t have his other suit, meaning that he had to walk from Queens _all the way to Manhattan_ since Happy was in California chauffeuring Pepper around for a change at the San Diego HQ.

Then no one was in the tower, dads, uncles and aunts alike, because there was a mission in Ottawa during the day and they had to handle international paperwork, which meant he was all alone unless he wanted to go down to the actual functioning part of SI and _actually do his job._ (Which, he didn’t. He’s put in a hundred hours since the start of the month and he was dying.)

He ended up fixing his nanotech and then going to sleep. He was out so hard, his advanced senses didn’t even tell him when everyone else got home. He completely missed his dad running his hands through his hair and giving him a kiss on the forehead.

The next two weeks went by much faster than usual, and he was incredibly thankful when he didn’t have to wake up early on Friday for school, seeing as presentations started at nine, each project had a half an hour presentation/speech, and he was going 3rd. His presentation was scheduled to start at ten, which meant he probably had to get up at eight to gather his thoughts and materials so he could launch the event at nine and then present at ten. It was a lot better than the 5 AM usual wakeup time he had in order to get to Queens by 6:45.

He made his way down to Floor 84, where his office was. (That’s right, he has an _official actual real office like a functioning adult._ Not a cubicle. An office.) (Not to mention he had people he was in charge of. He was technically the boss of eight _really important_ people at SI. And the only people he reported to were his own mom and dad.)

So many people said ‘Hi’ to him. Peter never could have imagined that he would be this popular at the job-that-was-originally-just-a-cover-but-now-he’s-kinda-irreplaceable-and-important-and-when-he-goes-to-school-it’s-a-huge-problem place. Three out of six people on his team were hanging out in his office when he got there.

Katie Lin was being unapologetically gay and sitting on an office chair incorrectly while gazing lovingly at her girlfriend Samantha, who was in Peter’s chair, spinning and playing with the trinkets on his desk. Matthew was being his normal, somewhat grumpy self, and was looking disgusted at the other two. (But, being their work dad, he was secretly happy they were happy.)

“Okay kids,” he started. “I’m assuming you all have your ends of the deals held up and when we walk down to the interns floors to start this thing we’ll be prepared, yes?” Samantha looked indignant.

“Kids? Parker, we’re older than you!” Peter huffed and frowned. “I guess you’ve got me there.”

Katie Lin smiled. “Michael and Faith will meet us down there with their parts, and since Mary Jo is technically not allowed up here, she opted to continue to do her job rather than goof off and take the day with the rest of us.”

Peter frowned playfully. “Aw, damn. I was hoping she’d come with us to see the results of her labor.”

Matthew patted his back. “Don’t worry, Peter. We’ll make sure we video it while you present it.” Peter grinned, and ran to the elevator, his team not far behind him.

Preparation was easy, and it wasn’t long until he was standing in front of the podium on the huge arena-stage on floor 76 as employees filed into the room. Then a thought struck him.

The tour groups. The only tours that were offered today were to the Intern presentations.

That meant his class was going to be here. He’s completely screwed.

And sure enough, thirty seconds later, his Academic Decathlon team, led by Flash and Mr. Harrington, walked into the room.


	2. Peter Goes On a Spiel, Tony is a Proud Dad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's class listens to Peter's commencement speech.

Flash’s day started out _great_. For one, Parker wasn’t there, and Leeds wasn’t saying anything, which meant that he could say whatever he wanted to about Liar Penis Parker with only mild glares from MJ.

“Of course he isn’t here. Parker just wanted to save his own ass, what did you expect?”

Flash continued to make jabs at Peter while Mr. Harrington did nothing, and soon enough they got on the bus. Flash sat directly behind Ned and MJ.

“Psst-” Flash started, “What will you do when everyone knows that your best friend is a fraud? You’ll all be even bigger jokes than you already are!”

MJ and Ned didn’t respond, Ned clamoring to MJ about how cool it was gonna be to see Peter’s work, and MJ was drawing a distressed Mr. Harrington. Eventually, Flash gave up, and not too long after, they pulled up at the massive monolith that was Stark Industries International HQ. 

The lobby was sparkly and grandiose, and the small number of high schoolers were suddenly glad that they joined the club.

Mr. Harrington walked up to a management desk in the lobby, his shoes clicking on the marble floors that were so shiny you could see your reflections in them. A nice 20-something woman stepped out from behind the desk, where she was chatting with one of the women behind the counter, and Ned’s eyes lit up. “That’s-” Mr. Harrington turned around and glared at him. He shut up.

“Judging by the surplus of small children, I’m going to assume you guys are Midtown’s Academic Decathlon team?” A chorus of small ‘yesses’ resounded. She grinned. “That’s fantastic!” She reached behind the counter and pulled out a bucket of passes. Then she turned back to the kids.

“Alright, so, I’m warning you right now. This is not going to be a normal field trip, even by SI standards. I’ll let you know that I am not a tour guide, I don’t know about the history of the company, and I can barely tell you one thing about Howard Stark. Today is absolutely insane. You are a STEM school, which is the only reason why you get to come to this. This is typically reserved for college kids wanting primary sources on their theses so consider yourself lucky. It’s Presentation Day, which means anyone and everyone is rushing around. You cannot touch anything. This is a performance, and if anyone’s metaphorical mic isn’t working, we’ll all get murked by the Baby Boss.” She ignored the kids’ odd looks and began to hand out the lanyards based on the picture on each one, and led them all to the elevator. “I have absolutely 0 clue what I’m doing, I’m just an intern. My name’s Faith, by the way. If you hear a voice in the wall, that’s FRIDAY. She’s the AI that runs this place. You probably won’t see a lot of her since you aren’t actually taking a tour, just watching, but just in case. 

There was an abnormally long pause until Faith screamed, “WAIT!” The elevator screeched to a halt, and Faith went bright red, and held on to the wall. “Sorry, FRI, I didn’t mean you.” She turned back around and gave the kids a once over. “You guys are Peter’s classmates, right?” all of them nodded, extremely confused. She scoffed. “Well, not today you’re not. Right now, you’re his subordinates. If any of you act a fool, he most definitely has the power to take me off my project and fire me.” She shivered, and Flash sputtered.

“You’re telling me Puny Parker actually has a job here?” he smirked as if she was gonna tell him no. Instead, she whipped her head around. “Of course he does! And under no circumstances will you say anything like that to him. I don’t know how he acts at school, but he’s extremely serious about his work here. I’d tell you, but it’s mostly confidential and I don’t trust a bunch of twelve-year-olds not to tell. Plus he’s my boss! Scratch that! He’s my boss’s boss! He’s my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss! And he’s the head of my project! And he’s head of all of R&D! Not to mention he’s an absolute genius with ties to Dr. Stark!” The AcaDec Team was shocked, but Faith didn’t notice. “Just, please be good and sit together wherever you want. Except for security, there isn’t going to be anyone watching you, so please stay out of the isle and make room for the other tour groups, move out of the way if someone needs to wheel a cart or project by you, um. Peter should be out shortly to give his opening speech and regulations and whatnot, so just sit tight!” The elevator door opened, and sure enough, directly in front of them, was Peter Parker.

As soon as the elevator opened, Peter whipped around, to try and convince his classmates that he hadn’t seen them. How had he not thought of this beforehand? He walked nervously towards the back of the stage and ran outside once the people in the audience couldn’t see him, towards a balcony. He took a while to calm down, until Samantha burst through the double doors. “Parker, let’s _go_. It’s showtime.” She ran back inside, and Peter took a huge breath and walked back into the building, gave the go-ahead, and walked back onstage.

There were a lot more people in the audience than there had been before, and a lot more than he expected there to be. The lights had dimmed, the lights on the crowd were out and the lights on the stage were low except for a spotlight following him. He somehow managed to not lose his composure, and slowly walked back to the podium with his notes and stuff on it. He looked out at the crowd. His class was obviously the youngest there, followed by some people applying for an undergrad, followed by graduates who were looking for a position at SI. Some employees had also wandered down to see what was happening. There were hundreds of people. Peter expected like 50. But that was okay.

He grinned. “You guys look like you could use an explanation, you all look very confused.” There were some nods in the audience, and he straightened. “Okay, well, you’ll have to contain your shock and surprise, we’ll have questions before we get into the projects, alright?” More nods. 

“So, hello! My name is Peter Parker and I’m the head of Research and Development here at Stark Industries, he moved away from the podium, which was mostly just for show since he had a throat mic and could move wherever he damn well pleased. Some people looked shocked. 

“I know what you’re thinking. This kid? Running a part of SI? And let me tell you, I honestly don’t know how it happened.” He paused. “So, a little bit of history on me, just to quench your curiosity, I started out completely a useless loser in my apartment in Queens. Then, this kid, who had powers, he was enhanced, knew I went to a fancy math and science school, asked me to make his tech. This kid, by the way, is Spider-Man.” Eyes widened in the crowd, except for Ned and MJ’s, who knew this was the cover Peter used at work. “So Spiderman becomes a swingin’ vigilante, armed with web shooters of my own design, everything is great.” He nods for effect. “So, most of you know about how Tony Stark basically adopted Spider-Man and got him a new suit and such. Spooderman decided that he didn’t like the web shooters on the new suit, and so the question inevitably came up ‘Did you make your own web shooters, why are you emotionally attached to them?’. Spider-Man said no, he just really liked the design of these, Tony asked who did make them, he said me, whatever. Then came Moving Day. So, I’m sure most of you know that Spider-Man saved a lot of Tony Stark’s stuff without his SpiderSuit when the Bird Man tried to steal it.” The crowd nodded. Peter scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Well, part of the reason Spider-Man didn’t have his suit, was because he basically asked me to jailbreak it to get cooler features.” Peter nodded toward Ned, who grinned. “With the help of a friend, I did, but then Spider-Man got the fancy suit taken away, and you know what happens next. So, Tony Stark wants to know who hacked the suit, Spiderboy told him me and my friend, then Tony Stark offered us internships.” He smiled. “My friend Ned’s actually in the crowd today, and if you get the chance, shame him for turning it down.” Midtown glared at Ned, who shrunk back in his seat.

Peter grinned wider. “Just kidding, you guys.” He moved back towards the podium with his notes on it. “So anyway, from that point on I mainly did stuff with Avengers tech, and that’s pretty cool, and then our head of R&D had to take a few months off due to a family emergency, and Tony basically just said to hell with it, and had me take over the calls to head of R&D and then was like, “Screw it, this is your job now.” So, like, now we have two R&D heads, and that’s me.” The crowd looked shocked, and Peter chuckled nervously.

“Anyway, that’s enough about me, let me tell you why you’re actually here.” He clapped, and some glassy-eyed people snapped back to attention. “So. Today’s Presentation Day. It probably seems really stupid to you, the fact that we’ve all been stressing out this much, but in case you aren’t aware, as soon as I’m done with this speech, a whole bunch of really important people here at SI are going to come down and determine if our lab projects will be funded anymore past the stage they’re already in. Like we’ve had preliminary funding to get our ideas off the ground and see if they would work in practicality rather than in theory, but all of the big bosses decide what’s practical for the company, so basically any of the things all of the interns and lab directors and whatnot create could be denied.” He smiled, but it came out as more of a grimace, and someone who was wheeling something through the crowd scoffed and yelled to the stage, “Like, your project will get defunded, Parker, you have Stark, Banner, Cho, and Potts wrapped around your finger. That’s _four out of six judges_.” 

Peter chuckled lightheartedly. “You also forget, Mong Lin, that I’m also one of the judges, and that my project got approved last year before I was anyone special, and my team’s here to be like that thing they do on Shark Tank where they show what they did with all the investors' money.” He paused. “Actually, that’s exactly what it is.” Mong Lin nodded. “Anyway, it’s hella stressful, so please be kind to our interns.” He hopped off the stage and helped Mong Lin with the heavy looking object she was wheeling, then hopped back on. “And now, I’ll introduce you to the rest of our fantastic judges who are determining the fate of every single potentially groundbreaking project here. Please welcome the rest of our fantastic heads of the company, the jury of the things we’ve dedicated our lives to for the past year, Mrs. Pepper Potts-Stark, Dr. Tony Stark, Dr. Bruce Banner, Dr. Helen Cho, and Dr. Robert Harrison.”

They walked out on stage, Pepper and Tony first, their arms linked. Tony flashed one of his famous paparazzi grins, and Pepper did a tiny curtsy. After them came Bruce, his hair sticking up in all directions, his face covered in soot except his eyes. He addressed the crowd. 

“Not gonna lie to you guys, I was in the middle of an experiment because I haven’t slept in two days and I completely forgot what day today was.”

Dr. Cho and Dr. Harrison walked out together and gave a small bow.

They all sat at a table in front of the front row, leaving a space open for Peter.

“So, there is, in fact, a reason all of us are here, and it’s because we all sort of run different aspects of SI. So, for instance, in projects having to do with engineering, Tony’s vote will count more, if it’s to do with company efficiency, Pepper’s vote will hold more weight. Same goes with Banner for physics, Cho for medical and biological, and Dr. H for general as well as nanoscience. As for me, I only get five votes total, and they’re for projects I think will help our world, no matter their impact on the company.” Tony scoffed, then addressed the crowd. 

“We call this phenomena ‘Parker’s Exception’, and it helps us put into perspective what’s good for our planet, and not get too absorbed in costs and stock prices and such. Because Peter’s so young, he doesn’t think about that shit-” Pepper smacked his arm, “at all.” he finished, rubbing his arm. 

Peter grinned. “Yeah, so… welcome, and your first presentations should be out in a minute!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, so yet again, I'm not actually dead, I've just been utterly swamped with work and completely unmotivated to do anything, plus Endgame made me sad, but my other WIPs are still In-Progress, I promise they're here somewhere.

**Author's Note:**

> Note, this is NOT set in the same universe as the other one I just used some of the same names and stuff.


End file.
